[ciapug] Looking for guidance

[Dave J. Hala Jr.]

Granted, I work a lot of hours -but its sporadic...

But why would you want to work as a salaried person at company that is
going to expect you work 60+ hours a week? I've been there, done that,
and it sucks. 




On Tue, 2006-05-02 at 08:30, Blake Norrell wrote:
> Just a word of advice on Principal:  If you have two small children,
> this is not a good company to work as a developer for.  I worked there
> as a programmer about a year an a half ago, and they expect  everyone
> to put in a lot of time (60+ hours a week is common) and the amount of
> work or effort you put in has no bearing on this.  I have two small
> children as well, and it really cut into the time I could spend with
> them.  
> 
> >>> On 5/1/2006 at 5:47 pm, in message
> <20060501224704.66861.qmail at web53104.mail.yahoo.com>,
> matthewaburch at yahoo.com wrote:
> Hello,
> Pardon for the verbosity of this email.
> I have been a board leech for a few months now, but I was wondering if
> the members might mind
> giving some professional advice.
> First, some background to set the stage. I am the bread winner of a
> family of four. At night when
> I get time from my 4yr old and autistic 3yr old, I have been teaching
> myself various technologies
> such as PHP and ASP and programming languages such as C++, Visual
> Basic and now the .NET framework
> and some ADO. I have yet to find a distribution of Linux that I really
> like to get to know well. I
> have been using computers since 1984 so I am not technically
> challenged. I started my career with
> networking and administration about 10 years ago, but have always
> enjoyed the little bits of
> programming that I have done and its challenges. I did have my MCSE
> back in 1999 with Windows NT4.
> I taught myself enough to pass all of the tests on my first attempt in
> a 4 week span, though I
> have never been an administrator in an Enterprise environment. I have
> zero experience with working
> in a team programming environment or as a professional developer. I
> have read numerous website
> tutorials, and started a decent sized library of various books. The
> major downside to all this
> unstructured self education is that most tutorials on the Internet and
> from books are small and
> uncomplicated. They teach ideas but not how they are often implemented
> with real world
> applications. I taught myself C++ and went to take a night course at
> DMACC here in Des Moines to
> try to learn more, but they don't go beyond a 2 semester offering.
> Unfortunately I was unable to
> get much from the class as I had already taught myself most of what
> the class contained and am
> unable to attend college full time to get a degree. 
> My questions are as follows:
> 
> .How possible is it to get a programming job at such places as
> Principal without a programming
> degree or any certifications?
> .What suggestions would you offer to help prove to a possible employer
> that I can do the job?
> .Do you know of any companies that offer Internships or would consider
> hiring someone cheaply
> just to get more experience?
> 
> Thank you in advance for any and all responses.
> 
> Matthew Burch
> 
> 
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Open Source Information Systems, Inc. (OSIS)
Dave J. Hala Jr., President <dave at osis.us>
641.485.1606