Reply #9: r.e. the technical people

[Don Claybrook]

I'm one of the technical people--I do routers, switches, firewalls, network design, break-fix, lots of bank ATM networks, stuff like that. Well, I was. I was laid off on the first of October. I've since moved to a less expensive part of the country and I don't yet have another job.

But, I'm very hesitant to take another job in this field, even if it's offered to me. It's odd. I always loved my job, less the political aspects of it. But in retrospect, I'm feeling a little like a tool that's interchangable and has been discarded. I'm putting the pencil to the paper and thinking very hard about trying to take a job that I would classify in the "liberal arts" category, so long as I can still support my family at a reduced rate and with a reduced "standard of living".

I'm not saying anything new when I state that your work should be your "art", and that's what network design always felt like to me. But the parameters that governed the job sort of choked that kind of thinking too. So I suppose I'm at the point where I'm wondering if I can eke out an existence chasing my passions instead of chasing corporate America around in circles.

I don't have any concise concluding statement or happy ending or anything to that effect. But I'm thinking about this, trying to consider all the angles as best I can.