We Few, We Happy Few, We Band of Hackers!

Yesterday was a total drag. The night migration guy got laid off. Was told his part of Phase 1 was finished so he’s gone. I got a call from the supervisor requesting I collect his badges and PC. Apparently they’re doing some re-thinking about the scheduling and Phase 2 won’t start for another couple of months (it was supposed to pick up right after Phase 1, but that’s two-week-old news). So Michael dropped by the Chicago office where we worked the last two weeks to pick up his stuff and get his misc. off his hard drive. Wished him luck out there and we commiserated with each other for a while. We’re all old guys there – Ted, the other day tech, is about my age too – so we recognize that we’re a new Band of Brothers; IT guys who qualify for AARP. I really need to say IT persons to avoid being sexist as there are plenty of women in the same boat. My manager at Sara Lee three years ago got laid off when I was and she was out of work for over a year-and-a-half, and she had just received her master’s degree in telecommunications! So, need a gender-neutral term for this: Band of Geezers? Band of Geeks? Band of Hackers? I think I like the last one. Also includes reference to an old hack; hack-writer; and so forth. ;-)

Of course, the scary part here is that my position may be reaching the end of its useful life! I have been told that my last day in Chicago will be today, and I will be back at HQ in Downers Grove next week. But what if they don’t plan on me coming back to HQ? I’m told they are no longer doing migrations there, but that we are supporting the next-day effort for all the small remote office sites, and that should keep us busy. But I don’t know how many of us are really needed for that. So, I may be in the same boat as Michael by the end of the day. Soon as I heard about this yesterday I jumped on the job boards and updated my info – doing that makes your listing float to the top for a few days so hopefully something will come from that.

The age thing makes it doubly tough when looking for work. IT is still looked at as a youthful field even after all these years. Management may be 50 or 60 but they think they need young guys to do the work. There are two reasons for this: one – the conventional wisdom is that the young turks will be skilled in all the latest technologies, and two – younger employees will qualify for and accept less pay than their more experienced senpai. Reason one is a crock – we had a gaggle of 20-somethings on this project and I spent as much time coaching them as anything else. I know the main reason is the second one – in fact, in this economy the employers are taking advantage of all the IT people out of work by cutting the pay overall. This job is paying me half what I was making two years ago. And the ads I apply for reflect about 30% cut in pay from two years ago for the same job. I think it’s time to change fields again. I will have to see what the SQL certification gets me. Failing that, a friend in the church just got promoted to general manager at the movie theater he’s been working at for years, and he said he’d be glad to get me on as a part-timer. Maybe I should look at full-time instead! ;-)

Anyway, wish me luck today. I’ll report on what, if anything, happens.