We all live on a Yellow Submarine,

An interesting youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLLAKZmyylg

And for my smokeboat brothers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPUHSSoAFp8&feature=related

When I see stuff like this, it reminds me of band of brothers, which leads me to my own band of brothers.

Tell me, is it odd that I still am as close to my shipmates now as I was twelve years ago?

I tell you now, I love them. I can drop a conversation, and pick it up a decade from then, and no one misses a word.

Is that how it is for you guys? Or is the exception?

quote:

Originally posted by stumpx:
When I see stuff like this, it reminds me of band of brothers, which leads me to my own band of brothers.

Tell me, is it odd that I still am as close to my shipmates now as I was twelve years ago?

I tell you now, I love them. I can drop a conversation, and pick it up a decade from then, and no one misses a word.

Is that how it is for you guys? Or is the exception?

Stumpy, this is not an exception at all. I share this same feeling with both my Target fleet E div shipmates and with my old Gold Crew Submarineer Shipmates… and for us it has been 36 plus years since serving together. BTW, when I graduated from basic SubSchool in October of 1971, the Groton Submarine School Band played the Beetle’s song, “Yellow Submarine”

No Stumpy you are not the exception. I have had the same experience.

But you have to remember we are all a little odd.

Dang , I was gonna tell Stumpy he was waaaaay out there and no one else had anything even near similar happen to them
Hey Stumpy I'm gonna be up yer way toward the end of July you gonna be home ? ??

Well, I might be, except it ain't my home any more. After ten months of not finding gainful employment in Oregon, I moved to Washington to work for my people.

How up into Washington ?

Dang Stumpy I didn't know you got laid off from there too. It took me almost 7 months to find something after Intel got rid of me. Now 3 jobs later I finally found something good.

Well, once you get up there on the pay scale, they find ways to do without you at Intel.

Then, when it comes time to get another job, you've done all this high level stuff, and have all these qualification on the job resume that mean jack outside the industry, and people want to pay you jack.

That's why I am working for my Fathers' people and attending grad school. Get out of technology for good. No one values technicians or their discipline because of the abuse of the term.

I'll just bide my time now in the Armpit of Seattle, finish my MBA, qualify CPA, and if I'm still a damn tech after all of that, go to law school. No matter what it takes, I'm through with being a tech. Twenty years I've been a technician of one kind or another, and with each degree I make less money.

Example:

Fresh out of high school, two years later, sonar tech 19k

Fresh out of the Nav, Intel Planar tech 60K

Mid term Intel PTD Modular Tech 70K

Latter year Intel Engineering Tech 80K plus bonuses.

Engineering management degree, took PTD Tech job so I could finish, 65K

Quit Intel to get second degree in Marketing Management, worked startups 55K

EM/BSBM Degrees, grad school. 45K. Current level

MBA/CPA- 35K a year? Due in 2009

Law Degree 25K? 2012?

Doctorate- Divorced, broken and penniless?

I like my current job. Low stress, great people. Perfect for attending school. But I'm barely making a living. Education is not really paying off at this point, since the job I'm in doesn't require anything to do it.

Well when I was fresh out of the navy I was doing field service. But that company sold the division so I moved on to Intel. Of course out here in Arizona they will hire you with military training but will not promote you. So now I am in a low stress field service job making the same money I was at Intel except for the bonuses. But I do understand.

Also out here they were hitting people with time in the company. I had 10 yrs. I heard of people with less than a year to go before retirement getting the boot. I think they are trying to save on paying that.

They canned the best boss I ever had, when she only had 3 months to GO!

Then they had the audacity to tell us to suck it up when they replaced her with a low rent, no RED BELT wearing RCG. Pathetic, I mean he could not even qualify Emergency Response Team, a primary requirement for an OM.

Oh well. After she left, I lasted maybe five months. After all, I had been there over ten years... replace me with some poor Indian or Chinese guy for half. Plus, they hold them hostage with those H-1B visas. If they could, they'd pay them a tenth, and keep them in Xiaxing or Mumbai. Trouble is, the same people who bust their butt in engineering also DON'T WANT TO LIVE IN THIRD WORLD CONDITIONS! Duh! They study hard so they can come here! Stupid managers!

Such is the "Tech" industry. When all the Manufacturing jobs were getting NAFTAed to places like Mexico and then to China, they told all those guys "go lern Komputerz, get Guuud jorb". Now, I never understood that, since working Software is one of the easiest things to offshore or outsource... no need to move any heavy equipment, build any new factories... just get somebody named Ping or Indira to bang away at a keyboard and email you the results.

Engineering IS hard work. No doubt about it. There are certain types that just really can't be out sourced to far away lands... specifically Civil Engineering. You MUST be registered in that state to do the work. Same with Architorture.

As for Law degree... ya, you can make money. The down side is not every aspect of Law is "fun". If you are an Engineer, your firm will try (like MAD) to push you into dull, boring crap like Patent Law, Intellectual Property, and stupid CHT. VERY few people wind up trial lawyers like Perry Mason, Johnny Cochran, etc. Many folks just don't have the Panache for it. I come from a long line of Lawyers... I like to joke that I escaped and became an Engineer. Hell, my folks STILL try to push me to go to Law School, but I haven't relented yet.

Oh, if it's any consolation... Ping in China... he's facing his job being outsourced too... to Vietnam. Vietnam is the NEW China.

I actually LIKE patent and IP law, and Business law too. I don't want to be Perry Mason, or some ambulance chaser.
I just gotta get the eff outta tech. It's a nowhere field.

A friend of mine years ago was a county DA up in Wisconsin. Like his wife put it he was too honest to be a defense lawyer. He couldnt lie for his clients. Good luck. I am doing field service work again. And loving it.

I'm still doing the Intel thing, but still loving the low stress. Except for the PTD thing, they're raving lunatics out there. Turned down several offers to advance to the engineering ranks, and haven't regretted it.

Plenty of ijits willing to step all over me to get ahead, so I let them. I usually see them on their way back down, or out. I'll still take my compressed schedule, and work 14 days a month. Got a wall full of attaboys, don't need one from corporate.

You can have it! Intel I mean.

PTD/LTD is a sweatbox. All the stress of being around Nucs without the fun.

I did love the oppressed work week, though.
HVM is actually fun and rewarding at Intel.
Had I stayed HVM, I might have retired, but I actually thought I could do PTD and have a life. PTD does everything wrong that the Nav does, except go to sea. If they could make Ronler Acres dive, it would be in the running for worse place to work, ever.

quote:

Originally posted by stumpx:
If they could make Ronler Acres dive, it would be in the running for worse place to work, ever.

No sh*t. Aloha's the place to be. Some Ronler clone was here for some training, called us the 'good ship lollipop'.

Heh. Some advantages to being an underachiever.

I started off in Planar, Bay 14 FAB15 Aloha. Oxpol/PSP/STI/ILD0 on SH6. Those were the days.

Then I went to D1B 854/856/858 etc... and to D1C 1264,66, 68 etc and then D1D to... quit after ten years or so. PTD burns people out. I never made any friends there, only with Ramp guys and those I kept in touch with in HVM, the seeds and people I started with. All the rules and values that Intel practices are null and void in LTD/PTD, because (supposedly) they get results. Ten years. Two suicides, countless breakdowns and just people walking off in disgust, and it continues. Oh well. Ten years I won't get back. The money was good.

quote:

Originally posted by stumpx:
I actually LIKE patent and IP law, and Business law too. I don't want to be Perry Mason, or some ambulance chaser.
I just gotta get the eff outta tech. It's a nowhere field.

You're just in the wrong KIND of Tech. There's more to technology than Komputerz

I am 39 years old. I am not starting over at this age. No one would pay me enough to learn new tech when they have so many candidates in the field.