Whatever Happened To Computer Operators?

[cojak]

Indeed, on the very page HAB linked to:

ITIL® V3 pins from left to right:
Foundation, Capability, Lifecycle, Expert, and Master
At this time, only the Foundation, Capability, Lifecycle and Expert pins are available.

That's what happens if you don't bother scrolling down the page!

Ta NF, and apols to HAB.

[cojak]

I am not so sure ITIL is the answer as it is a framework for the service industry. If you still don't know anything about that you have a framework you can't apply surely?

Wouldn't getting a grounding in a particular technology be better and find a niche to get in to rather than coming armed with no knowledge and a broad based frame work?

Something like a Cisco self learn or something that will enable him to actually do something possibly??

Yep, definitely.

I mentioned ITIL only because he was looking at Helpdesk work.

Cisco stuff would be a better way to go if it could get him contracts.

Basically OP you need something that will place you on-site, as this is obviously going to still be around for a while.

[dspsyssts]

Hairdresser? Shelf-stacker? You really don't sound cut out for the life of an IT Consultant - in any capacity - from your opening post.

Mmmm thanks for that, as I said I have been earning quite well for the last 10 years, I think with my Ltd company I even peaked at £78K one year...but its been slowly downhill since then.

There are plenty of AS400 operator jobs about, but most people have cottoned on to the fact that it's not a full time job and you'll have to do something else with it.

Really?...Michael Rothstein an agency that has been specialising in AS400 for over 20 years said they had one operator contract in the last 18 months, just dev/prog work now.

Mitsubishi UFJ are looking for an operator right now offering £40K+ but they are being very picky, I have an interview next Wednesday for an American bank in Canary Wharf again offering £40k+ so fingers crossed for that.

Thanks for the Cisco tips will look into that more.

[darmstadt]

Operators went the way of the mainframe and tape decks.

Obviously living on another planet Both my contracts are mainframe and I get at least 2 calls and numerous mails a week for mainframe work. One contract is in fact tape related, moving about 120TB of data from an old VTS into a new one. All the mainframe sites I go to still have operators but the job has changed a lot from when I originally started out as an operator (I still get offers of operating jobs, at least 3-4 a year) and is a lot more technical, in fact I don't think I could do it now...

In fact companies are looking to go back to the mainframe as not only can you now do nearly everything on a mainframe that you can on a disitributed environment but they're more energy efficient:

Fact: A mainframe is typically 10 times more energy efficient than distributed servers.

If you look at just one possible energy scenario, the numbers are spectacular. According to a Robert Frances Group study a company analyzed consolidation of hundreds of UNIX servers to one System z mainframe. The calculations showed monthly power costs of $30,165 for the UNIX servers versus $905 for System z. That company calculated they would save over $350,000 in power costs annually

[cojak]

Well I'm very pleased to hear it Darmstadt, now if you could just point the OP to those sort of contracts I'm sure he'd thank you for it..

Unless they're all on mainland Europe, he didn't say he'd want to travel...

[darmstadt]

I see that Jobserve now have a German site...

doing a search for operator on UK Jobserve gives a few jobs:

Find operator Jobs with jobserve.com