Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
Lucky them over there. Over here in the Netherlands, taking a job as a postman or package delivery guy is almost the last thing you want to do. Benefits are bad, pay is low, and working hours are idiotic.
The problem is that you need to know more and more to stay working; and even if you don't need to know more, companies require degrees. More and more people are getting to the point where they don't have, or can't acquire the needed knowledge or degrees wanted by companies.
Switching to a field outside of your expertise is slowly becoming impossible, at least in the Netherlands. I've got more than a decade of software engineering experience, and I've programmed in everything from assembler to C, C++, C#, Javascript, PHP4 through 7, and several PLC-related languages. I've been doing PHP7 and PLC's for the last couple of years, but when trying to switch to a job requiring C or Python or whatever, I'm treated as some sort of just-out-of-school kid and get told that I don't have enough experience 'with the required tools'.
Try to convince a recruiter that learning a new programming language takes like... well... half a day or so. And a few weeks to get up to speed with the default libraries and frameworks. That's the entire problem: you don't have, or get those few weeks.
If it's hard to switch *within* your own expertise (different versions), then try switching *out* of it. For example, me trying to get a job as a lawyer... or mechanical enineer. Not gonna happen.
|
So you are saying if the choice was starve or go into a lower level field, you would starve.
No, you could not go into a field that required a totally different education, but I am assuming you could work retail or some other non-technical field.
Let me tell something young man. My husband worked in the oilfield until the bottom fell out. He didn't have a degree of any kind. He lost everything, cars, house etc.
His taxes show that one year he made X. The following year he made 10% of that. Barely enough to eat.
He finally found a job running a crappy motel for a place to live. Luckily the owner of the motel hired him to do construction on another business. He wound up working the in the new business. The company he wound up working for has been through 3 buyouts and at least 4 different operating systems. He has been doing this job for the past 28 years. It literally took him 20 years to get back to even close to where he was when he lost everything. It pays way less than the previous field too.
Oh and he lost his first wife too. Apparently, she couldn't handle the stress of life anymore.
He lost her roughly 4 months before we met.