2/1     What do you think of your job/career?
        \_ http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=531
        \_ Pretty cool, I like it a lot. I just wish it was located
           someplace where I could afford a home nearby. -jrleek
           \_ what do you do?  What company?
           \_ If you live with roommates for a decade and put aside
              10% of your salary, you will eventually be able to
              afford a house. To get a single family home, you will
              probably need a wife/SO to join you. I know this is
              a big hurdle, but if you really want it, you can do
              this.
        \_ It was fun for a while, but kind of boring now. I get
           paid so much, it is going to be hard to change careers now.
           \_ Sad as it is, we need to be laid off once in a while to
              come back to 'normal' productivity, haha.
        \_ Awesome.  I think I'm going places, and doing indy consulting lets
           me do cool new projects pretty frequently.  I try to maintain a
           good network of people whom I genuinely like, so I can primarily
           work with guys I get along with.  The occasional insecurity and
           downtime can be pretty nerve-wracking though.  Career-wise, I have
           an idea where I want to be in ~5-10 years, but I'm mainly waiting
           to see how things develop.  -John
        \_ I go through periods of liking it at various levels. The main
           problem is that fundamentally I don't want to be cooped up in
           an office every day. I'd rather be travelling the world writing
           stuff with a laptop or whatever like the fucking yuppies in
           cafes. Well actually I'd only want to do that for a year or two.
           So basically I second the notion that affordability of a nice
           home is a major dent in my happiness.
           \_ Or a nice woman to fuck when you go home, haha.
              \_ Well that's a related subject. The job vs. personal life
                 conflict. Most tech jobs have a lot of time pressures. And
                 now job security is becoming an issue in tech, which means
                 more competition and therefore more time pressure. And more
                 competition means if you don't shine enough (or own your own
                 business) you won't get to work on the interesting problems.
                 I want more daily free time and 6 weeks of vacation every year
                 which doesn't fit the standard tech grunt profile.
           \_ Hey, you just described my job.  For subtle reasons that would
              take too long to detail on the motd I could kind of do with a
              traditional office environment for a bit.  Maybe we should
              trade.  Email me to discuss details. -dans
           \_ As a homeowner, I can say that I am satisfied but that it
              presents a whole new class of problems. A panacea it is
              not.
        \_ I'm a coder. I really like coding, but what I don't like
           is all the politics you have to start dealing w/ as you
           move up in the ranks. Also I've started to become a little
           wary of the fact that there is almost no job security in
           coding, which is why I'm going to law school right now.
           \_ what was your GPA/LSAT and where do you attend?
        \_ I would send this to my wife (who IS in her 7th year as a PhD
           candidate, ABD) but I think she might poison me if I did.
           \_ Read through the archives.  There's a lot about the thesis-writing
              spouse.  I'm 5th year, and that comic is part of what keeps
              me (almost) sane.