GSquared (5/27/2011)
Jake Shelton (5/26/2011)
I'm quite happy now Jan, don't get me wrong, BUT....just because I've moved on from the poor experience that doesn't mean I forget it. The article just brought up a LOT of bad memories.I can also assure you that most GP's in England earn comfortably something between 80 and 130K GBP, depending on location. Salaries for those in private practice are about double, then if you want to hire the specialists of the medical field, the "Rock Stars" as our friend Craig puts it, you're not looking at getting much change back out of half a mil p/a. Those figures are gross, pun only barely unintended.
As for your final-job question, there are aspects of my new field that take time to develope, and there isn't anything I can do to speed the process (and though there were corners I could cut, I wouldn't). I could take a contract without it impeding on it. Lastly, I guess it's satisfaction; I don't depend on the money from IT any more, and so I'd get a big kick out of my last gig being one where I'm not in constant fear of the sack, far from it.
But it WOULD be my last gig in this beastly profession. I'm just lucky to walk away with my good spirits, dignity, integrity and, most importantly, soul intact.
I definitely feel for you. I know plenty of people who are in jobs they hate, and feel chained to them. You escaped, and that's a good thing.
My experiences as a DBA haven't been anywhere near so bad as yours. For one, I'm making a very good income for the amount of work I have to do. For another, and much more important to me, I have a good employer and a good job and really enjoy the work.
I thought about going into medicine, many, many years ago, but after a few months as a volunteer EMT, I decided it wasn't for me. I love helping people, and am not at all squeemish about the human body's more interesting features and failures, but an experience with someone wanting to "keep his options open" (regarding the potential to sue me over saving his life), kind of soured me on the field. I literally saved the guy's life, and he was looking into legal options because his nose might be slightly disfigured by what I had to do to keep him from bleeding to death. I haven't run into anything like that in the DBA world. Not yet, anyway.
So, you're getting out of IT/DBA work for similar reasons to why I never really got all the way into medical work. I definitely sympathize with that. I guess anything can be wrong for some people.
Best of luck and success in your new endeavor. May it be all you hope for. Best of your past surpassed by worst of your future, and all that.
Many, many thanks indeed for the kind wishes. Computing is something I learned, but never loved, and I was never one of those kids who would look at code that had nothing to with me, and yearn to understand it. I have no bitterness to Microsoft, the product or anything technical, nor the chaps overseas who do our jobs, but rather what market forces have reduced our role to (here at least, you seem to be well insulated over there in the US). They say before you make peace with a bad experience, you need to understand why it happened. I'm just finishing up working it all out now, and I've always had a pretty good bounceback from anything.
And in fact, I will still be using SSIS, but for my own purposes. And there's nothing to say that if I do take that last contract, I won't post up here an issue I came across!
I daresay you may have been a bit premature with that incident of the chap threatening to sue you. You weren't being paid, hadn't been trained, therefore you didn't owe him any duty of professionalism. I also daresay one of your colleagues got you to pinch his nose precisely because you could get away with those things they can't, and that nasal disfigurement, when caused by rushed emergency circumstances, is neither an uncommon occurrence nor easily avoided. And if I'm right, then the most grievous injustice is that none of your colleagues told you the score afterwards - but again, it's just me guessing here.
As for the fella himself, I imagine he was just reacting to the advice given to him by the bowtie who you saw running after you through the back window of the vehicle. He might have stood to make a few years coin on the back of a maladjusted nose. I doubt he meant you personally any ill-will.
Did he end up suing, or didn't he? And if not, did you ever find out why not?