[wplug] Best mid-life career advice

[Tom Rhodes]

On Sun, 02 Sep 2007 12:04:39 -0400
Jonathan Billings <billings at negate.org> wrote:

> Tom Rhodes wrote:
> > "Scientists discover the world that exists.  Engineers create
> > the world that never existed."  I've always used that comment,
> > from college, to remind myself of some differences.  Personally,
> > I don't like terms like "network engineer" and "systems
> > engineer."  
> 
> I like that quote, I'll have to pass it on to the engineers in my 
> family.  :)  (I actually started off as a scientist, but fell into 
> system administration along the way.)

I'm very glad someone else can find use and humor from it.  :)

> 
> > Hell, at times I think some people just like having
> > "engineer" on their card when all they really are is a sys
> > admin who occasionally writes a perl script.
> 
> I suspect this is often the case.  My father and brother, both of them 
> engineers by degree, certification and job, have complained about the 
> use of 'engineer' in the IT world.  From their perspective, the only 
> person who can call themselves an engineer are those who have the 
> official certification of their field.
> 
> So, if there was a "network engineering" certification along the lines 
> of electrical or mechanical engineering certificates, I imagine it'd be 
> more in favour by the rest of the engineering crowd.

This one time, I heard the term "janitorial engineer."  And of
course, I wondered why they just didn't say "I"m a caretaker"
if they disliked "janitor."

Me, I'll stick with systems administrator.  :)

-- 
Tom Rhodes