What do you do?

Blazin said:

hazard pay!

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No thanks. Wound up being caused by lightning. I wait for the all clear on anything that might be bad. Now if it collapsed or just rotted I woulnd't care. While still burning, nope, nope, nope.

So I am going through a bit of a strange situation. I am on a contract that ends Monday. I wanted to stay with my company so they were moving me to another contract with DIA, but we lost that contract as well. So the incoming contractor on the DIA contract has asked me to stay on and be the IA manager, which normally I'd be all "lawl newp" but recently I've come around on the management thing. Thing is,t ehy don't want to pay. They want me to fill the manager role, all the technical shit I know, associated certs, clearance, polygraph, etc, and they balked at 135. Which, they will pay, because they have to because of the hiring process. But they will probably try and cut me down a bit later. And they want to bring on junior guys making like 80 to make up the difference, which is just hilarious.

So I'm shopping around. These staffing companies actually aren't so bad. Had one talking about 82 an hour, health care costs like 300 per week, more than makes up for it. Tons of options right now, I'm just worried I'm going to make the wrong decision. I want to remain technical, not do policy and compliance shit, so I am trying to hold the line. There are some analysis roles I am considering, pretty cool threat intel fusion analyst role at the PENCIRT, but mostly I am looking on the engineering side. I have until Sept 25th when my other contract ends to really get something going.

I'm the opposite. I'm searching for paths into management, because it's so easily transferrable. I enjoy the shit out of research (okay I enjoy working at home in my pajamas), but there's a ceiling before you get moved into a leadership role and spend more time juggling people than projects.

Seems odd that they would balk at the pay you require when you've got such a specialized set of skills and clearances. Perhaps they don't realize how small the pool of potential applicants is?

They low balled the living fuck out of the contract. Then they get in here, with no knowledge of the DIA culture or business processes, and find out that oh yeah, it takes months to get clearances transferred. So they HAVE to keep the incumbents, their plan was to come in and slash our salaries by like 30+% I am certain.

I'm coming around on the management thing. My thing has always been "stay technical" but now I'm more feeling like I want to do whatever has maximum impact on security as a whole. I don't like dealing with policy but I've been acting manager at this contract that ends on Monday since April and I have not had to get overly involved with the policy side so I have proved, at least to myself, that I can do it the way i would want to.

Yeah that's why i wanted to stay in DMI. They had me working on multiple proposals, felt more integrated into the company. But not that integrated I guess, since I'm looking for work.

It's hard to let go of that identity thing. "this is what I do, I am this" and then transitioning to a whole new type of thing. Feels like being a manager is like letting go of what I have always considered my skills. And I know that isn't true.

More impact too. Once you're the guy making the decision, rather than the person recommending the decision be made, you get a lot more respect for being the one putting your reputation on the line.

In my current role, I find myself acting in an advisory capacity more than anything else. I run actual research studies maybe once a month at best, and my baseline is only once per quarter (recruiting for disability research is very difficult and time consuming). I keep doing readouts and advising execs, but I'm just a well-paid cog in the machine.

I'm trying to wrangle a public/private partnership between contacts I have in both worlds. If I can maneuver it so that I'm responsible for making the deal happen, I stand a reasonable chance of getting put in charge. It's a very long shot, but it's my best way of leaving my mark on this company. The alternative is to keep adding to my resume and bail for a senior research job at another firm next year.

ZyyzYzzy said:

Also more monies.

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Sometimes, but not necessarily always. There are some very specialized skill sets where you can make a damn fine living just doing the job and letting management handle the strategy.

What do you do? Investment Banker

What field / industry? Structured Finance / Sales & Trading

Wages? $150,000 base salary

Bonuses/SEP? Bonus is 125% or more of base salary for past three years, not guaranteed. Basically as long as you work hard and your bosses like you your comp goes up YoY until you hit senior VP/Director, at which point it is much more about how much revenue you personally bring in.

Benefits? 4% matching on 401(k); fully insured; free cabs home if I work past 10:00; free expensed dinner every night if I work past 7:00; drinks and dinner when I take clients out; guaranteed two week "Mandatory Leave" vacation for sales and trading personnel; basically unlimited vacation if I want but I'd get fired or not paid eventually.

How long? 4 years total at the investment bank, 1 year at a commercial bank before that.

I work 70+ hours a week, travel once or twice a month, talk on the phone with buy side investors and bullshit on Bloomberg all day, and generally just whore myself out to the bank in hopes that one day I'll be an overpaid MD pulling down seven figures a year.

Itlan said:

So I'm looking for well-rounded advice from my RR brethren.

TL;DR - 26 year old contemplating going to medical school to study sports medicine. Am I a fucking lunatic?

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Sorry, I just now saw this but figured I could offer some advice. I am currently in my first year of residency, and like most have told you age 26 is definitely no reason not to pursue medicine if that is what you want to do. In my class we had plenty of people 26/27 when we started and a few people in their 30s even.

That being said, you should really be sure that this is what you want to do because honestly it's hard to really know just all that you're getting in to until you're there. I'm not sure of any sports medicine residency (or any residency) that is only 2 years long, for example. You'd most likely do a 3 year family medicine residency +- a sports medicine fellowship depending on how specialized you wanted to get with it. Definitely don't do Carribean schools, go for DO if you can't get into an American MD (I am American MD but I have friends who've done all 3).

Edit: In keeping with the thread, I make like 50k a year working 60-80 hours a week with the benefits of making ~250+ one day Obamacare permitting

Alex said:

I worked for a mega corporation (GE) for six months and it was the worst job I ever had. I hated it more than when I worked for the Ohio Department of Transportation and picked up fucking roadkill off the side of the road. It was incredibly boring. No one had any ambition there. I automated my entire job and would do my entire week's worth of assignments in a few hours. I Peter Gibbons'ed the fuck outta that job. Showed up at 10. Left at 2.

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Which ge business?

Ossoi said:

Which ge business?

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I don't remember the exact name. It was for the infrastructure services in Cincinnati, OH.

a_skeleton_03 said:

chaos have you looked into Palantir at all?

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These guys have totally ruined downtown Palo Alto :|