Work outside IT

[EternalOptimist]

I quite like the idea of adding a portion of yakult the lady of the house's chest potatos

[Bagpuss]

I quite like the idea of adding a portion of yakult the lady of the house's chest potatos

An Actimel sized dose over the eggs is enough for most women

[Bagpuss]

I never met any of those when I was fixing tellys for a living... more's the pity.

Though one of the other "engineers" used to put it about a bit...

I've seen the film

"Das TV ist Kaputt"

[NickFitz]

IT is generally easy and pays really well for the effort put in. I think where it suffers is that it is generally inconsequential and badly understood (and thus not respected) by people generally. There's not very much 'honourable' about writing a credit card transaction system for a shop that sells treadmills, or a data access layer for an application which processes MoT renewals. Being paid well is a great compensation but it doesn't really help with this 'worthiness gap'

That's why I like working on public-facing web apps - there's a reasonable chance that you end up with something that has a "cool factor", and that your non-geek mates can understand (and maybe even be impressed by).

Denise van Outen was singing the praises of one of my things on the Capital breakfast show the other month... then again, that's her job

[TheBigYinJames]

That's why I like working on public-facing web apps - there's a reasonable chance that you end up with something that has a "cool factor", and that your non-geek mates can understand (and maybe even be impressed by).

For years I worked on intranet apps, and people couldn't even see what i'd done. But now i can point to various bits and bobs on the public internet and say "I did that"*

*generally I also add 'I didn't pick the colour scheme, that was some oiky designer from art school**'

** dontya just hate being asked for your 'portfolio' by agents who don't know the difference between a graphics designer and a web applications designer

[TheBigYinJames]

There was a time when one of my "things" was sold in Argos... for £79.99, rapidly reducing to £39.99 to get rid of them all

Go on, put us out of our misery. I might even have one!

[Bagpuss]

Have you not heard of the Rampant Rabbit?

[oracleslave]

Have you not heard of the Rampant Rabbit?

I think that's a different type of hardwear Baggy.

[NickFitz]

For years I worked on intranet apps, and people couldn't even see what i'd done. But now i can point to various bits and bobs on the public internet and say "I did that"*

*generally I also add 'I didn't pick the colour scheme, that was some oiky designer from art school**'

** dontya just hate being asked for your 'portfolio' by agents who don't know the difference between a graphics designer and a web applications designer

Yup, I always make it absolutely clear that I am not a designer, I'm a developer - or "coder" as some like to call it for some reason.

And it is very annoying when agents do that - the implication is that you're going to be judged on somebody else's work (i.e. the designer's) because they sure as hell aren't going to read the HTML, CSS or JS - and they can't see what's on the back end at all

One just has to hope that the client is sufficiently clued up - I once landed a nice gig as an "XSLT Consultant" (for which they'd interviewed loads of people over a couple of months) simply because I was able to make it clear that I understood the differences between declarative and procedural programming languages - how could they have established that from a "portfolio"?

[HairyArsedBloke]

When the economy finally collapses and we are forced into a more agrarian society much beloved of the lefties, I’d like to be a brewer. I would also consider baker, but that involves working nights. Something in the middle of the supply chain from farmer to consumer.