'Dumb & Dumber' Seeks 'Best & Brightest'

[Jim Hickstein]

> - People who think that if you are a UNIX systems administrator that you
> should also be able to install, design and administer their databases ...

Unfortunately, this says less about the competence of the recruiter than 
the simple fact of the demand.  More work, no more (or less) pay.  I did 
all of those things at my last gig, plus hiring and firing and all that.  I 
was lucky to be continuously employed by one company through all this, so I 
didn't have the 60% cut in pay, but then again I'm not expecting a raise 
for many years to come.

> customer in need; indeed, it has been my commitment to my customers,
> rather than my managers, that has usually led to disagreements, as I
> stood up for my customers, and suffered for it.

Roger that.  Come to think of it, that's one of _my_ biggest "failings", 
too.  Integrity does not sell.  Not in the short run, anyway.  But it's 
still good business.  See below, under "e14p".

> same magazines ('CIO', 'CFO', etc); how were they to know any better?

Don't forget _Business Week_, my all-time most productive source of bad 
ideas in the heads of executives as they disembark from airplanes.

> This is a great time to start a new business, if you don't mind starting
> small. There are thousands of small customers roaming around, looking for
> the best deal; and some big ones, too. A lot of people have independently
> come to that conclusion; they have skills, they see opportunities, and
> they are making the best of them.

Ayup.  Shameless plug: see http://www.imap-partners.net/

> When all is said and done, I think the lesson of the past five years is
> this: that it is simpler for an engineer to learn business, than it is
> for a businessman to learn engineering. For this reason, businessmen
> would do well to beware.

LOL!  And possibly true, though as an Entrepreneur (for which I offer the 
world the shorter "e10r", and "e14p" for Entrepreneurship -- try typing 
_that_ a bunch of times; cf "i18n/l10n") I at least have a sense of how far 
I have to go before I can be said to have "learned business."  That, I 
think, is the more important advantage for the engineer: the other guy 
thinks he already knows your field, notwithstanding his self-effacing "I'm 
not technical."

> Keep an eye out for a garage to live in, for the short term, though.
> /-:

Houses are cheap in St. Paul. :-)  Well, compared to Sunnyvale.  And if you 
can afford to pay someone else to shovel the snow....