I've had my current job for

[vroom]

what job?

 314/19%

less than 3 months

 203/12%

>=3 months and < 6 months

 141/9%

>=6 months and < 1 year

 262/16%

>=1 year and < 2 years

 303/18%

>=2 years and < 3 years

 147/9%

>=3 years and < 5 years

 150/9%

>=5 years and < 7 years

 54/3%

7 or more years

 72/4%

1646 total votes

[cacharbe]

Started here as a contract 3 years ago. Apparently, my little ruse worked, as they thought so highly of me, they bought my contract out early and brought me on as a 'team player' after only 6 months.


I now sit in my corner and look with scorn on the code of others, meanwhile hoping no one looks too deeply at mine.


*WHEW* Even I can tell I need coffee after _THAT_ remark

[hackmare]

Someone talking of becoming a permie in a (albeit seemingly) positive way?
I'm impressed.

Doesn't it usually go more like... "i've gone permie...
...but they say they have a great retirement plan..."

Contracting for 3 years and no idea why anyone would stop.

[cacharbe]

Positive? Well. I'd say "Im Bitter, but the benefits are good."

I have a freedom/benefit ratio that is well within my tolerance at the moment, so I'm no _too_ anxious to go looking for the "darkness I know not of" so to speak.

Chuck.

[lemming]

Hmm, I got caught in the Intel sweep of contrators and my contracting firm was nice enough to follow up as well. Right in the middle of my vacation. (Not that I knew until I was looking for my Intel badge for my first day back and found the letter from my company telling me what went on two weeks before. wee!)

So I'm definitly in the "what job" catagory, but I have managed to redo the home network, play with a chainsaw in the yard (DEATH to holly trees!), fix plumbing, and work on my '71 VW Van. It's been a nice vacation.

[dirthurts]

What? No "Less than a week" option?

[Ay_Bee]

I,ve had my current job for 35 years 3 months Now that Really hurts!!!!!!!!! My memory concerns me - but I forget why !!!

[dthor]

ouch. that hurt me in some tender spots.

[TStanley]

I've had my job since July 2000, and its been a very steep learning curve for me, but I have enjoyed every second of it, trying to learn SQL, PHP, Perl, and a smattering of C and Java to top it all off. My thanks goes out to vroom for putting together a great site, and to all the Perlmonks for their help and suggestions.

TStanley
In the end, there can be only one!

UPDATE:And as of 30 May, I joined the ranks of the unemployed. Talk about nasty surprises. Fortunately as I write this, I have one definite job interview lined up, plus a lead on a second interview (Thanks chipmunk!)
UPDATE 2:And as of June 8, I am now gainfully employed as a Unix System Administrator. Talk about a change in jobs.

[Elgon]

I'm a student me but I'm going over to the dark side for the summer, I'm interning with Accenture: VB & Java here we come, MUAH HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Please note: I may choose to be a corporate drone for the first five years after I graduate but this is only a)to gain enough experience in business and IT to set up my own firm and b) to earn enough money to pay off my university debts. I don't really buy into the whole corporate ethic, I just use it to my own ends.

Now if only I can stop myself from being perverted to such an extent that I actually believe the crap I spout...

"Violence is the first resort of those faced with yet another BSOD."
-- /me

[Anonymous Monk]

I don't really buy into the whole corporate ethic, I just use it to my own ends.

... which is exactly the 'corporate ethic' to which you refer...

[elwarren]

Oh yes, the innocence of youth. Going to corupt the corporate machine from within, just like the rest of us. I thought I'd never own a suit or work in a building with more than 3 floors :-)

[bastard]

yes,
you don't break the corp. it breaks you. i have watched it break many (good) people. somehow i've been the exception. i've got far more freedom now than when i was a consultant. (then again i keep waiting to wake up one day, pink slip in hand)

now i just have to figure out how i'm going to make a 10am meeting tomorrow

the real perk is a window seat 42 stories up. the rest is just fodder

[Elgon]

Oh, come on, I may be young but I'm not that naive!

I don't mind wearing a suit anyway: I like the feeling of well-dressedness that goes with a suit and a good pair of shoes.

"Violence is the first resort of those faced with yet another BSOD."
--Gareth Morris

[PotPieMan]

I've had my current (part-time) job since August 2000. Recently, I've been doing some programming in JSP, which I've found somewhat enticing (but it is Java).

I just took on another part-time job as a programmer at a local ISP. Mostly VBScript in ASP, but there is the possibility of doing some PerlScript.

Oh, and I'm taking classes this summer. Intro to CIS and Physics with Calculus 2.

This should be fun. ;-)

--PotPieMan

[merlyn]

For me, it depends on what "job" means. I've owned and operated Stonehenge for 14 years now, but it's only been a corporation for the past two years, so prior to that, I was merely "gainfully unemployed". Now I finally get W-2s from Stonehenge. I don't recall if I had to fill out my own I-9. I certainly didn't show a Social Security card because I haven't had one since my wallet was stolen in 1980.

So depending how you measure it, it's either 14 years, 2 years, 9 years (master trainer for Stonehenge), 6 months (teaching grad school at OGI as an adjunct professor) or hour-by-hour for each of the courses I teach. {grin}

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

[LeGo]

I really wish I could do grad school some where. That looks to be a nice bit of good classes.

But being that my undergrad GPA was not all that great and money is an issue...

Why can't education be fee? Merlyn if you ever offer a class via the web let me know.

LeGo

[merlyn]

Merlyn if you ever offer a class via the web let me know.

I've heard this question a lot. But I'm never sure what it means.

Does it mean "if you ever put up your course materials on the web for free, let me know", because that's not likely to happen without a good business case. And I've already got 120 magazine columns for free on the web. Have you seen those? And the courseware is already available in a low-cost form, called "The Llama Book".

If it means "if you ever conduct a class on the web, let me know" then very likely it'll cost the same as the open-enrollment courses we offer in Portland and elsewhere, because the benefit will be the same. Except I'm unlikely to do that, because I'd have to reinvest another $75K or so to develop and rewrite my materials for web delivery, and yet the return would not be there.

So, what do you mean? What are you really asking for?

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

[princepawn]

I started Perl as a programming profession in November of 1999. Since then, I am now at my 6th company. That is an average of a new job every 3 months. The reasons for leaving each company are, in chronological order:
• layoff after 30 days
• dropped due to change in s/w development focus
• terminated due to differences. I was a contractor expecting hourly pay and they were a dot-com expecting me to work 12 hours per day for constant rate
• terminated due to lack of project profitability
• left prematurely because the company was a hopeless mismanaged wreck
• still here now, but Northern California is kind of cold for me. Gotta hit Florida next.

[dze27]

I find myself in the most popular category, between 6 months and 1 year. I've been with my group since September 2000. I knew there was a lot of turnover in tech jobs but I'm still surprised that around half of us who are working have been at our jobs less than a year!

[Animal]

arg... i'm about done with this job. after nearly a year of slaving away under the brutal halogen lights of a suburban cybercafe, i've received the final insult: a case of strep donated by my boss's bratty kid o_O

~Animal

[John M. Dlugosz]

sigh. There are better ways to get strep.

[mikfire]

Sigh. Less than three months, but I am on Job v7.0. I do not know if that amuses me or depresses me :/

SilvervB1rd, that is my line. Get your own whine about the poll options. :)

mikfire

[jednet]

I 'Proudly Brew' Starbucks coffee at Cal State Fullerton.

[Caillte]

The day I fill this form out I get made redundant... fate or what??? ;)

I think I'll go back into contracting now... this wage slave stuff is just too depressing :P

Well, unless that is I get a really good offer ;)

Update: Someone --'d me for this?? *boggle* Appears there are some loyal wage slaves out there ;)

$japh->{'Caillte'} = $me;

[elwarren]

I've been a consultant for over three years now, so technically it's one job, but I've been out on 5 contracts since I started. It has it's advantages and disadvantages. I've moved around enough to see benefits on both sides of the fence. It's nice to be able to move on to something else at the end of your contract, typically about the same time I get bored/fed up with the company. At the same time it can be really hard making friends (or avoiding them) while integrating into different corporate cultures.

My next step after this will be independant, unless there is some incredible offer at a job I actually enjoy. Some days I grow tired of carrying the weight of others...

[jaubertmoniker]

All you people and your computer-related jobs. I've had my current job for 11 months, but I only work in retail pharmacy...programming is just a "side thing" for me.

[Ay_Bee]

Don't put own the work you do to live. 
We who try to learn to program for the fun of it have it all, 
we can stop whenever we want to!!! 

Also we can wander where our fancy takes us, no boss to say 
"Code these boring routines again and again", 
and you even have easy access to headache cures.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

My memory concerns me 
- but I forget why !!!

[SilverB1rd]

What no (CowboyNeal|vroom) option? I feel left out of this poll :BigGrin:

------
The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance

[petemar1]

Rumor has it that if one stays in a full-time I.T. position for longer than 2 years, usually the salary is no longer competitive after that time. However, staying less than a year appears fickle.

- m peters -

[el-moe]

They've been paying me for about 20 months to code Perl. I have 1.5 months to go until I make a big decision weather or not to continue this fiasco.

Question:
Am I the only one here that stands alone as the only programmer in a company of 5000?

That shocked look on your face tells me that you haven't had the "pleasure" to work in manufacturing before...

I sure would like it if there was at least one other programmer to talk to about stuff...

Prost,
Moe

[cacharbe]

Shocked look? Hardly. I work for a tier 1 automotive supplier in their "Technology Development" group, incharge of developing new projects within our current platforms, and I'm one of two with a CS degree, except for our manager, and he probably hasn't written a line of code for about 7 years. When I start talking about passing pointers, scope and polymorphism, everyone gets that blank stare that roughly equates too "I know everything you just said was english, but I'm sorry, most of it didn't register as having any meaning."

It's frustrating, really. I work really hard to set a good example to those in the group coming from MIS and that think VB is the end all be all of the programming lingua franca (Not that I have a problem with VB, use it myself sometimes, but...). Things like:

• - Use good structure, for others would like to read it.
• - Use comments, for others would like to understand it.
• - Have others read your code, for none of us are infallible
• - Please, ask questions, as we know more as a group than we do singularly

But it doesn't always stick. *sigh*

Edit: chipmunk 2001-05-20

[Vynce]

well, actually, it isn't all english. i mean, the ones you cite are all derived from english, at least, but "grep" certainly isn't, and i don't think "polymorphism" is used to mean anything really recognizable as what we use it to mean.
programmers just make more sense to each other than we do to "people". but i digress, i'm sure. probably comes from being unemployed so long.

[Journeyman]

Depends what you mean by "job". I mean, I'm doing the same job, from the same seat (roughly) as four years ago.

But in that time, I've worked for:
Y-Com.
Fullduplex.
Gorsewood.
Concentric.
NextLink.
XO Communications.

Every time the company name changes, they say "We'll be doing development work from now on, we'll need your skills..." Then they put me on helpdesk and the development work doesn't materialise. The question I'm asking myself is "how do I get out of this ... outfit?" How do you write a CV? Are there companies you can pay to make a good CV?

===
I haven't got my real sig on here.
I tried to, but just got biro marks on my screen.

[Mungbeans]

Me: since August '99. Seems longer. Why is there no 'not working with cowboy neal so it seems longer' category?

Remember it's not what you do at work that counts, but who...

[cacharbe]

Never, ever, sleep with the bosses daughter...Always sleep with the boss.

[Jouke]

I started here A pril 1st 2001, so only 1.5 months ago. Before that I worked 8 months for Nedstat, and before that I was self-employed for 3 years. Slowly but surely I'm getting used to having a boss, and not deciding everything myself.

But always looking for better offers of course ;-)

Jouke Visser, Perl 'Adept'

[Iron_Stork]

I've made my nest of multimode fiber here for 8 months now. When I am reborn, I want to be a strip bar. I am learning Perl to automate myself out of existence.

[ftforger]

One of the nice things about staying at the same place (if you can find the right place) is that some things start to "pile up". Like for me, I've been with the same large corporation for just over 20 years (I know, a significant number of monks were not even born when I started here). So, I am now up to 5 weeks of paid vacation every year! Add to that about 8 holidays, plus 4 weeks of sick leave, and 2 weeks of personal time...

[hackmare]

Hmmm. That brings you up to the starting point if you were a French worker.
Except for the bit about their 35 hour work week being STRICTLY enforced.
And the other part about unpaid overtime being strictly illegal, and the max. overtime being 8 hours per week
that's a 42 hour work week.

But then again you'd have to work with the French, which is a chore in itself.
From Switzerland, ...

--hackmare.

[Anonymous Monk]

The only problem is if you actually want to work more you can't. A friend of my from the Netherlands did her graduate work in the US. She worked as long as was necessary to get her work done on time. She is now doing her postdoc/assistant professorship at a univeristy near Utrect. Sometimes she can't stand the way she is essentially prevented from working late if she is on a roll. Her coworkers say that she's been corrupted :) Still, she says its worth it... Even with the chronic housing shortage and german tourists.

[Tiefling]

I have had my current job for either three weeks or about half an hour, depending upon whether my contract has been drafted. (I know that's a silly way of looking at it, but hey, I'm getting a better job.)

I'm not going to be writing Perl. :-(

I *am* going to be earing Real Money. :-)

I won't have to work for the morons who nearly didn't give me a reference, and cancelled the work I was supposed to do today. :-)

Tiefling

[Ranna]

No job... Too young, it seems -.-

[agoth]

i quit and haven't got a job,
suits me fine for the moment !!

[blue_cowdawg]

Came on board my current assignment hoping this would be my forever job. Unfortunately they want to be cheap with the $$. So now I am looking to step out as an independant contractor.

If that works out being independant will be my forever job.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Peter L. Berghold --- [e-mail]
"Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it."

[mt2k]

I'm 16 and I just applied for a job at McDonalds!!

[marvell]

I've been the Technical Director of Parasol Solutions for nearly three years. Half the staff are perl programmers, or at least know perl. A couple are Monks and a couple are Mongers.

Before that, I was an IT contractor. My work was 50/50 sysadmin and data munging with perl. And before that, I worked in development support at PtS with Zigster.

--
Brother Marvell