Re: Selling my Traveler

["Thomas J. Harais" <tjhemh@domain.elided>]

Ken, Eric:

I didn't mean to stir everyone up. I'm just getting damn tired of being told
"you're lucky you have a job!" when so many people I have known for years
are now pulling down six figures. What make it worse for me, is in the high
tech world, many of the top earners I know don't even have a college degree.
If you have the right skillset, and you're in the right place at the right
time, bingo!

I've worked middle management finance for 20 years and am pretty familiar
with the job market in the Bay Area and six figure salaries are getting more
and more common. Execs are making $200,000 plus at many small comanies.

I just get all stirred up because I'm jealous as hell. If you're a software
or hardware engineer, you've got it made. Don't like your job, just pick up
the phone, you can have a new one tomorrow.

And Ken, I know all about the IPOs and the low salaries, long hours, college
dorm like atmosphere. I've worked for two entreprenuerial firms that started
in garages and made thier owner's millionaires inside of five years -
although niether of these were high tech.


By the way, the startups around here have had to start paying actual
salaries to actract people. The competition is so fierce that stock options
aren't enough anymore. There was a good article about the pay and perks
being offered by the likes of HP and Oracle - from tennis courts to famous
chefs in their subsidized cafaterias - because these companies can't afford
the turnover anymore.

Don't you remember they were clamoring for congress to ease immigration
rules so they could hire all those foriegn programmers erlier this year.
They were claiming "labor shortage". well, don't let them fool you. There is
no labor shortage. They just don't like paying top dollar and they know that
there are lots of qualified third worlders out there willing to work for
half of what a Silcione Valley engineer is demanding and getting.

I've had to work with NEXTEL and PeopleSoft. Both are full of a bunch of 25
year olds, willing to work day and night for so-so pay plus options But they
think bringing your dog to work and free Cokes are great benefits. They
sleep under thier desks and they are all sure they are going to be the next
"Microsoft" or "Amazon.com". And, they tend to be overly confident and
pretty cocky - at least to old farts like me.

Interestingly enough, they never hear it when "old farts" like me and
freinds of mine warn them that, for every Microsoft there are 99 other
companies that did the same thing but never even went public, let alone made
millionaires out of thier employees.

Two years ago, I was working on a PeopleSoft implementation. I worked with
lots of folks that were sure PeopleSoft would never faulter. Myself, an lots
of 'older" coworkers that have been around the block once or twice warned
them that rapid sales growth covers lots of sins and when their growth in
sales leveled off, PeopleSoft may go thorugh some hard times.

They thought we were "old" and "negative".

Look what happened to PeopleSoft this year.

I rest my case.

The guy I told you about the $140k offer - he turned it down because it is a
start-up and he got burned on stock options before. He is currently working
at a start-up that is just about to go IPO but at least he has been there
for four years and they have a track record. The new offer came from an old
coworker and they are just getting things going. They don't even have solid
financing in place yet.

Say how much could I make as an IH specialist/mechanic?

Tom H.