Okay i ain't got the job yet but it looks like the company could be looking for a new IT person to travel around the fleet and look after the on board networks and assit the onshore guys occasionally.

Right what do you guys think i should be talking about to try and convice the guys in the office that while i have no formal computer training i know enough to get the job.

I would hopefully get some training in computers before or if i started and i have told the head IT guy about my empeg related intrests and he said to get in touch.

Do you know what OS they use and what hardware they've got?

- Trevor

I find it surprising to learn that ordinary network administration skills can demand a higher salary than someone who can fix "sodding big" diesel engines...

In reply to:

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I find it surprising to learn that ordinary network administration skills can demand a higher salary than someone who can fix "sodding big" diesel engines...

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Interesting point. If you think about it, in the old days mechanics were easier to come by and cars were easier to work on. It seems the opposite now. And computer freaks seem to be popping up everywhere now, and computers are getting easier to use. So may it will be different in the near future?

I can see your logic, from what I see the IT market is becoming saturated. When I was at uni I had a lot of friends that were on computer science related courses. When I finish my course (Broadcast Engineering BTW) I got my job at the BBC the day before I graduated, but I don't know anyone from the IT courses that got a job immediately, in fact, I know of handful of guys who still haven't managed to find jobs in IT.
They all thought they'd be on 60K a year with a company BMW, I don't know of one person that actually acheived this. Last time spoke to one of them, he was a travelling server maintainance man, moving from basement to basement upgrading servers in the dead of night. From what I heard they'd almost been told that these cushy jobs where waiting for them, I suppose a lot can happen in 3 years. Sadly they graduated the wrong side of the millenium so they couldn't killing testing systems for Y2K compliance.

As for thinfourth2, I'd stick with the F-off big engines if I were you, they sound really cool!!!!

When it comes to computers (well programming, because thats what I do, I don't really know about the other side) I think the most important trait is creative ability. When I was in school there were only two people I knew of in all my computer classes the exhibited this quality. It took some people days to complete projects that took me only two hours to program (under 1,000 lines of code). That's not to say I'm a great programmer, but just that most of these people were there because they had heard being in computers was the big thing to do and not because they had any aptitude for it. I remember taking a C++ course and having a graduating senior walk out of a test in anger because the professor wouldn't tell her how to create the text file needed to complete an exersise. She was so mad and I just couldn't understand how she could think she was going to be able to have any job in computers if after for years of classes she still didn't know how to do such a simple thing. So, I guess my point is that while there are a lot of people doing computers, I think that perhaps the market is flooded with those like the people graduated from my university who have no business in the IT field but get hired because they look good on paper. Just my 2 cents of course . . .

>>They all thought they'd be on 60K a year with a company BMW

After graduation back in '93 I found NO jobs in IT, so worked for a year as a truck driver, barman, peat cutter etc., then finally managed to find a PC support role on £10k a year. (This was considerably less than I was earning as a truck driver, but it was in IT which is where I wanted to be)

Now I am up in the sensible salaries range, but that is only because I made the decision to specialise in IT Security. I have colleagues who were on the same salary as me and now I earn more than double what they get.

The only ex-colleagues of mine who earn more than me are those who went in to sales, and one guy who is a router guru for Avaya.

Lean times for most folk. Scary!

Is it true that you can make $200,000 a year driving trucks (if you have your own truck)?

I totally agree, the world is flooded with IT wannabees, some of which earn a fortune, others earning little, but in gereral the majority at the bottom of a steep learning curve they their attitude shows they will never climb "knowledge-wise" very far!

You need to be a certain kind of person to be really good at IT, someone who is dedicated to solving tasks and learning on their own, not someone who just deligates, but someone who gets the job done nomatter how difficult or what difficulties stand in the way!

I have had great difficulties finding good IT support people to help me, we've hired no end, some with impressive CV's, but to be honest what they do in a month I could do in a few days!

I've got one lad now who tries really hard and is learning fast but even though everyone "thinks" they are IT people, there are very few that are "dedicated" enough to be called IT Professionals!

- Sorry to ramble on!

Two reasons first to work in IT means you don't have to go away on a ship following the huge engine around for 7 months a year.

Secondly is the engines coming in today are just starting to be built have no camshaft and are entirly computer controlled

The main reason is it would be something different to do for a while which would be kind of intresting

Dunno, mate - I just delivered lots of beer to lots of pubs. Made about £20k a year doing it, I guess. That might be around $30k.

Keeps you fit, too - carting about all those kegs. Something I miss now, with my desk job and far too many business lunches

It's a tough life.

first to work in IT means you don't have to go away on a ship following the huge engine around for 7 months a year.

Good point. Given that, I'd probably take a cut in pay to move to IT. You have my blessing.

Another bonus point is servers don't remove limbs or kill you if you get things slightly wrong

I dunno, IIS comes rather close to that at times.

Okay, let me clarify.

There are times when I think it would be less painful to remove a limb than to deal with IIS.

Two reasons first to work in IT means you don't have to go away on a ship following the huge engine around for 7 months a year.

La Dolce Vita. In my Dad's time (~'37-'60) it was 10-11 months a year (Oh, yeah, and he had to walk 5 miles to school through the snow!)

I'm always looking for jobs where I could abandon Seattle during the darker months. Let me know if they get desperate! (Actuallly, I occasionally look at NOAA job listings to see if a shipboard IT/admin job comes up, but I have never seen one...)

Another bonus point is servers don't remove limbs or kill you if you get things slightly wrong

On the software side, I suppose. Hardware, well, an IT job can lead you into the places of the building that shouldn't be occupied, or deal with rackmounting a 200 pound server at the very top of a 6 foot rack. Plus if repair work needs to be done, well, that 200 pound machine has a slightly more powerful power supply.

I do wonder how many major injuries and deaths have occured in the IT field recently, and if it's less then it was when dealing with the old beasts from the 60's.

Tony:

That IIS crack was TREMENDOUS!!! It rears it's ugly head once in a while in my office, and I have to beat it back with a large club...

Rob

Yeah, the funny part was when Thinfourth said it, I actually weighed the two extremes in my head. Seriously.